Onward to the San Francisco Church! Unfortunately, I couldn’t enter because I was wearing shorts and that was against dress code. So I took some pictures from the front door and around the market area.

Beautiful architecture inside the San Francisco Church

A little garden and cross in the market area near San Francisco church

Kids playing

Beautiful trees in the large market area

The market area by the Tomb of Hermano Pedro/San Francisco Church

And all through the town, there are decorations filling the streets!

No flour used in this design, just pine leaves and flowers!

Creating a mural from pine and flowers

Colored flour

You can see the different supplies used to create these beautiful murals

After my Maundy Thursday post yesterday, I went around Antigua to enjoy the festivities and take a lot of pictures! I have about 70 some photos, so I’m dividing this into two parts! Without further ado (or words!):

Pictures of the central park and all the people in the streets of Antigua

On the way to La Marcel

People are crowding the streets the enjoy the festivities

Central Park is bursting with activity

Taken from the steps of Cathedral of San José

Taken from the steps of Cathedral of San José

Taken from the steps of Cathedral of San José

Taken from the steps of Cathedral of San José

Just buy some of this handcrafted jewelry! Throw in your sunglasses and you have a deal 🙂

Heading towards the central park… and what’s this? A parade?!

I took some back streets to move faster around the crowd

People on the roof enjoying the great view!

Trying to capture a picture of all the banners flying around. Purple is my favorite color!

These can be seen flying all over town!

Hanging from the windows

Holy Week – La Antigua

Decoration left overs laying on the ground

Checking out the La Merced a few blocks from the Central Park!

The solders are real people

La Merced is this large yellow church… lets take a peek inside

A scene set up inside of La Merced

Vendors selling food all over the La Merced Park

Such a wide variety of delicious smells… I wanted a little bit of everything!

As we approach Good Friday, people are preparing for the conclusion of Holy Week and jumping into Easter!

Today marks the Mass of the Lord’s Supper (aka the Last Supper) and inaugurates the Easter Triduum! Traditionally, private mass is forbidden on this day and the only mass to be held is in the evening to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

Churches around Antigua will begin services at 4 or 5 pm and conclude with exposing the blessed sacrament around beautifully decorated alters. The streets will be filled with people coming to enjoy the marvelous event! (And I’ll be there to capture some pictures)

People around the old city have already begun decorating the streets for the weekend! It is fun to watch people make these designs on the streets, layers of sawdust, pine leaves, various fruit and flowers to complete the decor. Hours of work to create a beautiful piece of artwork that is only seen for a couple of days. Talk about dedication!

People spray off the ground and place sawdust to be decorated

Some people in my neighborhood getting things ready

I love how people close down whole streets themselves and no one cares 🙂

The real celebration begins tomorrow afternoon, so I’ll be updating the blog a little later in the evening or on Saturday morning, depending how long I feel like celebrating! I’m getting pretty excited and will be posting a lot of pictures so stay tuned 🙂